More than 50,000 Americans flown home to US as the coronavirus pandemic rages around globe

Chris WoodyardUSA TODAY

Thursday

Apr 9, 2020 at 9:41 AM

The government has flown more than 50,000 Americans home in a massive effort to evacuate citizens from countries around the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.

The massive airlift, which began Jan. 29, involved 490 flights in coordination with foreign governments, militaries, airport authorities and others, Pompeo said at the daily White House press briefing on the coronavirus crisis.

The update comes after an outcry in Congress last month the effort was unfolding too slowly, with Americans left stranded in Peru, Morocco, the Philippines and other nations.

“No American citizen should be abandoned overseas as we confront this unprecedented pandemic simply because of a failure of government to provide them the support that they need,” Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at the time. “If there ever was a need to increase our nation’s aircraft capability during a national crisis, this is it.”

In one case, riverboats were sent into the Amazon jungle in Peru in coordination with the Peruvian military to locate U.S. citizens, said Pompeo. Medications were secured for a woman in remote Nepal before she was flown home. Another group was flown out of Honduras even though the government there had closed the airport amid the pandemic, he said.

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Those who go abroad "are proud to know their country will not leave them stranded," Pompeo said.